How does Alva LINK optimize my EV charging — and does it work if I have solar?

Alva LINK finds the cheapest way to charge your EV, whether that's overnight grid power, midday solar, or a combination of both.

Without solar — price-optimized grid charging ★

You plug in your car, set a departure time in the Alva app ("ready by 07:00"), and Autopilot handles the rest. It looks at tonight's and tomorrow morning's electricity prices, calculates how long your car needs to charge (using vehicle API data for your current battery level — vehicle APIs are an Autopilot ★ feature because they incur per-call cloud costs), and schedules charging during the cheapest hours. The result: your car is full when you need it, and you paid the lowest possible rate.

In Europe the spot market, overnight prices are often 50–80% lower than evening peaks. For a typical EV consuming 3,000–4,000 kWh per year, this shift alone saves €100–€260 annually.

With solar — smart surplus routing ★

When your solar panels produce more than your home consumes, Alva LINK routes the surplus to your EV before exporting to the grid. Why? Because the electricity you use yourself is worth more than what you earn from exporting it. Autopilot maintains a priority queue: excess solar goes first to the EV, then to hot water heating, then to a home battery, and finally to the grid. This maximizes self-consumption and minimizes waste.

With solar + battery — full coordination ★

This is where multi-asset coordination gets powerful. On a sunny day, Autopilot might charge your home battery from solar during the morning (when the car is away), store the energy, and then transfer it to the EV in the evening when you plug in — effectively charging your car with free solar power, time-shifted by 8 hours. No manual scheduling. No mode switching. The system sees all three assets and finds the optimal path.

What about fuse limits? An EV charger draws 3.6–11 kW. A heat pump can draw 2–5 kW. If both run at full power on a 20A or 25A main fuse, you trip. Alva LINK coordinates their power draw in real time, dynamically reducing one to make room for the other. This load-balancing works even on the free Basic tier — it's a safety feature, not an upsell.